Video playback on Palms vs. Pocket PCs

[roberto_torres]

The main treat now for PPC is not phones or convergence devices like the ipod, it is the once underpowerd Palm OS.

Just look at this review http://www.brighthand.com/article/Zire_71_review

The Zire runs movies at 320x320 in 165 fps with a 144 Mhz processor. :evil: and even has a cammera.

My Ipaq 1910 can barely run movies at 20 fps at 320 x 240 with 200 Mhz processor :cry:

Microsoft should do something to improove multimedia or Palm OS is going to win the race :devilboy:

[TBone]

The Zire runs movies at 320x320 in 165 fps with a 144 Mhz processor. and even has a cammera.

Not bloody likely. Why does this myth keep sticking around? Yes, the PalmOS can play movies at 165 fps, if you disable the audio stream completely and flip through the frames as fast as possible. My Maestro can do the same, but I've got this crazy problem: I DON'T WATCH MOVIES AT 165 FPS WITH NO SOUND. And until Palm has a real file system, it's a pain in the ass converting anything I want to watch into Kinoma and then Hotsyncing it over to an SD card.

No thank you. Pocket PC is still the only real choice for multimedia, as I believe the article you reference at the Gadgeteer points out. I'd choose my arguments a little better next time.

[dh]

The Zire runs movies at 320x320 in 165 fps with a 144 Mhz processor. and even has a cammera.

Not bloody likely. Why does this myth keep sticking around? Yes, the PalmOS can play movies at 165 fps, if you disable the audio stream completely and flip through the frames as fast as possible. My Maestro can do the same, but I've got this crazy problem: I DON'T WATCH MOVIES AT 165 FPS WITH NO SOUND. And until Palm has a real file system, it's a pain in the ass converting anything I want to watch into Kinoma and then Hotsyncing it over to an SD card.

No thank you. Pocket PC is still the only real choice for multimedia, as I believe the article you reference at the Gadgeteer points out. I'd choose my arguments a little better next time.

With my Axim, 1GB CF card and PocketMVP I have a great multimedia device. At any time I can carry 3 full length movies and a ton of music in ogg format. I also have an SD card for even more stuff.

PocketMVP is a fantastic movie player, DivX movies play really well in full screen mode, try to do that on a little square screen.

Sorry guys, Palm still make a nice little organiser, but that's about it. The only sensible way to watch video in PalmOS is with Sony. Anyone want to buy a 1GB MemoryStick?

[Jason Dunn]

My Ipaq 1910 can barely run movies at 20 fps at 320 x 240 with 200 Mhz processor :cry:

This completely depends on the player though, and let me just say tha a certain player you're familiar with is going to get much, much better in terms of performance in a few months. Trust me on that. :mrgreen:

[spursdude]

This completely depends on the player though, and let me just say tha a certain player you're familiar with is going to get much, much better in terms of performance in a few months. Trust me on that. :mrgreen:
Aggghhh Jason... does this WMP9 for the PPC will be fantastic? Of course you probably won't be able to say anything....

[xoiph]

Windows Media Player 9? I was thinking more along the lines of Pocket TV.

[guinness]

I can get a good 20+ fps @ full-screen with Divx movies using Pocket MVP. Mpeg movies aren't bad either, but Divx files are usually smaller. I would be interested in how WMP 9 video codecs would play out on PPC, they've done some pretty nifty stuff with them on the desktop, like ESPN Motion, pretty cool use, IMO.

[lonesniper]

I might be wrong as I never listened in Biology or could understand my Television Engineering course, but doesn't the eye see fluid motion video at 24fps. We have something called persistance of vision. And that is the reason why TV and film is 25fps, just enough so we don't see the flicker. Cats don't have persistance of vision so when they stare at the TV they are not watching "Friends" they are watching the flashing lights.

Anyway PalmOS will never be any good for video until it plays AVI and WMV and MPG files with out having to do lots of different steps reencoding it. I wish PalmOS or Sony Clie's could view .WMV files, that would be great for me and real compition to PPC. I have +20GB of TV Shows in WMV format and growing each day. :D I bet people can't say that of Kinoma format files.

[Duncan]

This completely depends on the player though, and let me just say tha a certain player you're familiar with is going to get much, much better in terms of performance in a few months. Trust me on that.

What's that creaking sound? I believe it's an NDA stretching almost to breaking point...! :lol:

[Nellwaskilled]

Zire 71 is using Kinoma, which uses Cinepak Codec, while most PPC fps are stated using .mpeg codec. You should check out what that high FPS look like in Kinoma (not to mention sound quality) before actually wanting it.

Cinepak and .mpeg have a very different different compression scheme, hence CPU load and picture quality.

not all fps is created equal. (search the net for explanation between the two codecs)

[PapaSmurfDan]

From what I have seen, comparing a Kinoma video to a Divx video is not fair at all. Kinoma appears to be using Cinepak Mobile for its compression. It is much ligher weight than any of the mpeg (1 included) standards and the full set of the codec has been around since Windows 3.1. There is nothing wrong with Cinepak, and it was a great choice for the 68k POS devices. Until you have a Divx player or comparable mpeg-4 player on PalmOS 5 device (or a Kinoma video player on the PPC), these FPS numbers ARE NOT COMPARABLE! I am also leaving out the bit that your also way above the LCD refresh on most devices, but this is the sake of pure numbers.

For the record, I get about 28-30fps on a 30fps 320x240 Divx 5 at 192kbps(one pass) with 56kbs mp3 audio on a 400mhz Axim. My Framerate is solid at 30 or 24 if I feel like doing a two pass encode.

Now when someone says they are getting 160fps on a Divx playback on thier Plam, I will be very impressed and may trade in my desktop for a Palm at that point ;)

Regarding fluid motion in humans. The trick is keeping an even spacing and not skipping frames. 15fps can pass as motion to most people, however 24 is much better. After about 60fps, the fluidness of motion is harder to percive.

-Dan

[Nellwaskilled]

160fps Divx ? where where?.....gimme gimme..... :mrgreen:

[LorryDriver71]

Anyone want to buy a 1GB MemoryStick?

Yeah, I'm gonna get one of them, I'll put my house and car on the market tomorrow. :D

As for 165fps, what the hell does a human eye run at? Can't be much more than that, why would you want it that fast????

[heov]

forget palm and kinoma.

why do sony clie's play mpegs like no other? I saw a 560kbps 480x320 mpg clip on the nx70v and although there was no FPS meter... you could tell that thing was smooth. yes, it has audio ;)

I do know about the DSP chip, which handles must of the decoding, and my question is, why don't PPC oems include DSP chips? some say it's not needed, but playing mp3s still do slow down my ppc sometiems. I mainly play games while listening to mp3s and the mp3 does slow it down... if it had a DSP to handle it, it'd be pretty nice. oh well.

anyway about palm, yes, it plays Cinepek files very well, but the thing is it is VERY easy to decode cinepek, and file sizes are HUGE. Divx is much smaller and much harder to decode....

[rave]

Zire 71 is using Kinoma, which uses Cinepak Codec, while most PPC fps are stated using .mpeg codec.
From what I know, decoding a Cinepak video is a simpler process than decoding an MPEG video. That's why even the 66 MHz Dragonballs can handle it. There is a tradeoff, though: Cinepak is inferior to MPEG in terms of image quality and compression ratio.

[PapaSmurfDan]

forget palm and kinoma.

why do sony clie's play mpegs like no other? I saw a 560kbps 480x320 mpg clip on the nx70v and although there was no FPS meter... you could tell that thing was smooth. yes, it has audio ;)

I do know about the DSP chip, which handles must of the decoding, and my question is, why don't PPC oems include DSP chips? some say it's not needed, but playing mp3s still do slow down my ppc sometiems. I mainly play games while listening to mp3s and the mp3 does slow it down... if it had a DSP to handle it, it'd be pretty nice. oh well.


Remember POS has a lot less overhead. Also the jump from 320x240 -> 480x320 is fairly large for an mpeg-1. The higher bitrate was needed to keep it comparable in quality to a ~350kbps 320x240 mpeg-1. BTW, I have never had any video become very jerky on my PPC, unless it was being streamed.

And speaking of the DSP's, that is one of the biggest sore spots I have with POS devices right now. Sony will not release thier sound api for the NX or NZ. Becuase of that, there are apps that can play sound on a Palm POS5 device but not a Sony POS5 device. Also Sony has used different DSP's over time and they do not have all of the same capalbilties. Back when you only had a 33mhz 68k class CPU, that DSP was needed. With 144mhz,200mhz, and 400mhz ARM Class CPUs, it is not needed. Also if you have a DSP, you might be limiting it to one class of compression standards, MP3/ACC/Whatever Sony's one is. Becuase you are on a low power and low memory bandwitdh device, you start to elimiate using programable DSP's such as the EMU10k series used in the SBLive (Creative never made use of those DSPs well but they are a good example). For one I use OGG's for my music, and that was an issue when I was looking at getting a NX60 over an Axim.

If PPC's had DSP's, it would be a pain in the ass (Would early e740 users trying to watch Divx's be a good example?). That means the mp3 player you are using must support that DSP or else it will fall back on the CPU and you would gain nothing. You would be lucky to get MS to include support for that DSP in WMP. Overall, adding adhoc standards is not a road one wants to go down (see the issues with 802.11g that are related due to a non-final standard and people interpeting the current draft differently). Take a look at POS development one day. Yes POS may be easier to code for, but you have adhoc standards (thanks Sony) that you might need to code for too. At least Sony is prevailent enough in POS that the stuff they did is more or less a standard now.

-Dan

[sracer]

Sorry, but I can't get all jazzed up about reported specs. I prefer firsthand tests. As long as I can get outstanding quality via ultralow bitrate wmv (87K video, 16K audio, 15fps, 40MB per hour of Video) I'm a happy camper.

The following are raw screencaps take from my Audiovox Maestro....

http://www.geocities.com/tcperconti/wmv-01.jpg http://www.geocities.com/tcperconti/wmv-02.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/tcperconti/wmv-03.jpg

[Nellwaskilled]

you could have at least rotate the screen before posting it. I almost twist my neck. :D

[Jason Dunn]

you could have at least rotate the screen before posting it. I almost twist my neck. :D

Whatsammta', you afraid of some exercise? :lol:

[sracer]

armchair exercises... tilt your head to the right...and...2...and... 3...

Maybe someone should post images rotated the otherway for symmetry.
Otherwise we'll be able to spot the people who follow this thread by the bulging neck muscles on their left side only. :lol:

[TheNewSteve]

I bet with the new processor and maybe OS there can be a new version of PocketMVP (or PockeTV).

I like PocketMVP for divx, but it's very unstable for .oggs and usually freezes my PPC. I like WinamPAQ for audio use.

For some reason, neither of these players can use the EQ functions for .ogg files, just for .mp3s.

-Steve

[Foo Fighter]

Having owned both PalmOS and Pocket PC devices, there is no doubt in my mind that PPC is still superior to PalmOS at handling media, video in particular. Although Sony's proprietary video player on high end Clies does come very close to matching it. Kinoma sucks. :roll:

[qmrq]

The Zire runs movies at 320x320 in 165 fps with a 144 Mhz processor. and even has a cammera.

Not bloody likely. Why does this myth keep sticking around? Yes, the PalmOS can play movies at 165 fps, if you disable the audio stream completely and flip through the frames as fast as possible. My Maestro can do the same, but I've got this crazy problem: I DON'T WATCH MOVIES AT 165 FPS WITH NO SOUND. And until Palm has a real file system, it's a pain in the ass converting anything I want to watch into Kinoma and then Hotsyncing it over to an SD card.

No thank you. Pocket PC is still the only real choice for multimedia, as I believe the article you reference at the Gadgeteer points out. I'd choose my arguments a little better next time.

With my Axim, 1GB CF card and PocketMVP I have a great multimedia device. At any time I can carry 3 full length movies and a ton of music in ogg format. I also have an SD card for even more stuff.

PocketMVP is a fantastic movie player, DivX movies play really well in full screen mode, try to do that on a little square screen.

Sorry guys, Palm still make a nice little organiser, but that's about it. The only sensible way to watch video in PalmOS is with Sony. Anyone want to buy a 1GB MemoryStick?

1GB Memory Sticks only come in the "Memory Stick Pro" format . . . which isn't compatible with older devices. Do any Clies support MSP? I haven't seen many devices that do. Even Sony's high-end digital cameras only work with standard Memory Stick media. :(